I'm Still Here
by Sugarflier
Summary: A series of Shedding Skins related one-shots, mostly focusing on Linus, just because I miss writing about him and his team and his friends. Will probably mostly just consist of mindless violence when I'm in the mood to write some.


Author's Note : Hello everyone! If you're reading this and haven't read Shedding Skins, there's probably no point. It's just a series of Shedding Skins related one-shots because I'm missing Linus and co. It will be updated rarely in all honesty, mostly just when I'm in the mood for some mindless violence that comes in the wonderful form of my favorite character of my own making.

Anyway, enjoy!

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I'm Still Here

Incident A

Setting : Military base just off route thirty-eight, six months after the conclusion of the Johto Civil War, nine fifty-one PM

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Oh my God. He's here.

I had my rifle in my hands and I was aiming before I even knew what I was doing - that was training just kicking in. The others in the room were all grabbing guns and turning them on him too, and we were all so scared. We had heard the stories.

He just burst in through the door, all rage and fire, the dragonfly hovering above him, the weasel and the walking fish flanking him.

The dragonfly was the first to take a life. It moved too fast for anyone to even notice it at first. What we noticed first was that Jake's head had been torn from his shoulders, then we noticed that the dragonfly had it in his mouth and we all screamed. Not screams of fear, screams of rage. Rage that he had taken one of our own.

Then before I could pull the trigger, a jet of water hit my gun and knocked it straight from my hands. It felt like my hands had been hit by a freight train and I knew that they would be bruised to hell tomorrow, but that was not my concern. My concern was the battle that we were rapidly losing.

All around me, my friends were losing their guns or being slaughtered on the spot, and this was in seconds. No one even really had any time to squeeze off a shot. Frank's gun started glowing red hot and he hurled it away with a scream while Tony's was knocked from his hands by a jet of water, just like mine had been. Raymond was about to pull the trigger when the dragonfly, barely more than a blur, shot past and Ray's arm was suddenly no longer attached to the rest of him.

All around, we were losing, and he was just strolling through the middle of the room, fire and water and smoke and mist all around him. He had a gun in his right hand now, and his dark hair had fallen into his eyes. He didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn't care. I didn't know.

And we were shitting ourselves because of a little boy. Grown men, soldiers, no less, were acting like headless chickens because of a sixteen year old boy. And I now understood what the big deal about this boy was.

Jack's face was scorched and he screamed and fell to the floor while Patrick's skull was smashed in by a jet of water. And then things got so much worse because suddenly three more beasts appeared around the boy.

The snake was first to move. He sprayed acid at the now unarmed Frank and soaked him in it. It got in Frank's eyes and he screamed and fell against a table. Everyone was screaming now and everyone was running. Myself included.

I was running for the exit, Tony not far behind me. Then I heard a scream. Yet another scream. I looked back and Tony was on the ground, eyes open wide and screaming and screaming and looking at the bloody stump where his leg used to be while the dragon that towered above him held said leg in its mouth and crunched down on it.

Tony had signed up for the army with me. We had met through a mutual friend in our fifth year of high school and had been good friends for a couple of years before both signing up for the army together. And since then he had become my best friend then evolved into something of a brother then something beyond even that. You can't describe the bond you have with someone you fight alongside. It's just different to anything else and now he was dead. Well, not yet, but as good as. I knew it and I felt like just curling up and dying, but I was conditioned to survive so I kept running.

So, yes, I ran. But I did not stop looking back. Blood was everywhere. I had been too focused on the people, but now that I looked around, blood splash painted the whole room red. These men would usually be deafened and in turn drowned out by the sound of gunfire, but this time it was the sound of screaming instead. Most of them were still alive as well, and were going to be left to the the devices of the little psychopath at the center of the carnage.

I had never before seen a more horrifying individual. He looked to me like Satan himself. Standing tall and proud, fearless. Bloodstained, with fire raging around him, he stood in the middle of a circle of slaughter, his own little handful of demons under his command. He didn't even need to get his own hands dirty, he just stood there, the occasional blood spray making contact with him as his demons tore my friends apart. But that gun was still in his hand, as if to remind us all that he could get his own hands dirty and kill personally if he so wished.

And I reached the exit. I slammed both palms into the bar to open the door and threw it open. I needed to get away from all this. I needed out.

So I made it about two steps outside and found that all the cars outside were black, burned out shells of metal. Every single one. Just smoking, burnt wreckages.

Then the beast stepped out in front of me. A red and orange lizard with what looked like gauntlets on its hands. They seemed to be made of thicker, tougher scales than the rest of its body. The fingers ended in short, sturdy claws and its tail ended in an intense little flame. Its face was more bird-like, with a short, wide bill and beady little eyes.

I threw a punch at it. I didn't know what else to do, so I launched a right cross as it. I was physically bigger than the Magmar and I was a soldier. I could fight. I had to take my chances. It darted out of my fist's path and slammed its own hand into my abdomen, its little claws puncturing the skin. I could feel that I was bleeding, and it hurt, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't like I had been stabbed or anything.

The Magmar then pushed me back through the door and straight back into hell. And hell had gotten worse.

The building was starting to burn. There was no longer just fire being thrown around, it had actually caught and now the building was on fire. It wouldn't be too long before it would spread and burn the whole place to the ground, and that kid was still just standing there, looking around at the chaos that was his fault and evaluating it. It's not like he was wearing a proud smirk or there was a malicious gleam in his eye or anything, it was that he recognized all the death and blood and fire and destruction and knew that it was all his fault and he was just so apathetic towards it. He knew but he just did not care at all and that was worse than someone who was evil and enjoyed it.

And he turned his eyes to me. And in that moment, the only thing I could think was that the rest of the soldiers, the scientists, the politicians and leaders were all up against the entire Johto training population, but they were also up against Linus Ferrie, and that was so, so much worse.

"Tell your superiors that I said no," he said simply. He didn't whisper and he didn't shout, he just spoke. No anger behind it, no hate, just a sense of mild boredom.

He pulled three of those balls from each pocket and the original six monsters disappeared into them in flashes of red light before he shoved them back in his pockets. He returned the Magmar separately and didn't return the ball to his pocket. No, he just held it in his left hand as he turned and walked out.

On his way, Nathan stirred. Just another one of my friends. He tried to raise his gun at the trainer as he passed, but the trainer was quicker. He pulled out a pistol, pointed it at Nathan's head and blew his brains out with a bang. He kept on walking like nothing had happened as the building started to collapse around him.


End file.
